2012 ESP NRL Card Review

Dr Grange · Sep 8, 2012

tak35bne said:
It makes good business sense for these guys to be very familar with this brand and customer base, I think that will improve with time and George a very good point about team cards due to Select still having the contract to Oct/Nov..........I still think that with what they have shown us the future looks good.

I hope your right Dave, But I can't help but worry seeing how much the prices on Ebay for these cards have dropped in 5 days The fact their not selling to well. Ikon have given everyone 30 day credit on the product so the resellers are hoping to sell a lot of stock before they have to pay & it hasn't happened hence the price drop.
Then the next release is going to be aimed at the kids with a product similar to Stax Attack with a much bigger production than the currant cards. Now if these don't sell to well that will be a lot of stock left over from both releases before we get our premium cards next year. That's whats worrying me I hope they don't panic & pull the pin as they would of paid a lot of money to the NRL as well.

MILD · Sep 9, 2012

Dave, I completely agree about the extra incentives for case and multibox buyers. Allow me to be selfish though, where does that leave people such as myself. I am very new to the hobby- as a matter of fact the 2012 Champions was my first Australian set and I last bought cards in high school. After both Select releases I was very enthusiastic for more. After this release, not so much. I understand each pack is a gamble and you win some, you lose some. To add a little more to it, my seven and nine year old boys ( the nine year old never interested until Dynasty) show bigger all interest in this set but are always asking to look through the Select binders.

Out of curiousity, are we the buyers ESP want or are we such a small portion of the market that we will take what we get and like it? That's not to make trouble, that is a legitimate question.

rowdy7070 · Sep 9, 2012

speaking for myself i wish i never wasted my cash buying 2 cases of this rubbish.better off buying another case of dynasty.loved how all the big e bay sellers had the cards prior to release and flooded e bay with them while small time buyers had to wait.the jersey sigs are very ordinary mostly some sigs look like my 4 year old son did them.if they keep mass producing crap for the dollar rugby league collectors will be left without a distributor.because they will back out once they start getting left with stock they can,t sell.maybe 3 nrl releases in the 1 season is a bit much for some collectors re low prices on thiefbay

tak35bne · Sep 9, 2012

MILD said:
Out of curiousity, are we the buyers ESP want or are we such a small portion of the market that we will take what we get and like it? That's not to make trouble, that is a legitimate question.

Simple answer is I don't know.......without some sort of a representative body behind us all we can do as individuals is write to ESP and provide collector feedback on their product. I wrote to them and offered examples of the positives I found in the release (in my opinion) and the negatives such as: 1. Price, 2. No low to mid end inserts. 3. The poor on Jersey sigs. 4. The pen used in some sigs such as the Benji's, 5. The material the packet was made out of (hard to open), 6. Promotional material, 7. Albums being late, 8. Case Card confusion. 9. Numbering on the auto's to name a few.

ooneil · Sep 9, 2012

Did you hear back?

tak35bne · Sep 9, 2012

ooneil said:
Did you hear back?

Owen, if you are asking about my post above then not yet. I only sent it yesterday. I hope they do take the time to reply.

Gameday Online · Sep 10, 2012

Have been a little busy with life so have not had a chance to get my hands on this product. Reading through this thread it seems like a poor start by ESP.
I don't think the "first release" quote can be used as an excuse in this case for quality issues in this set as they have known they were going to be doing this for around 12 months now with plenty of time to prepare a quality product. Love the idea of jersey cards and signature jerseys etc... being introduced into the rugby league trading card market but boy does it look like they stuffed those up. They seem to have got the odds all out of whack and a lack of customer service seems to be appearing.... Better the devil you know may be what everyone is saying this time next year. ( I hope not ).
Select have done plenty wrong over the years but it's a pity when they were getting so close to getting things right they lost the motivation to keep going.
Let's hope this first release by ESP is just a blip on the radar and 2013 they can smash out some quality product at sensible prices.
If not Select still makes AFL so you may need to convert !!! Sorry to all the die hard Rugby League supporters...

aussiebloke · Sep 10, 2012

I won't be buying any of this rubbish

ooneil · Sep 10, 2012

aussiebloke said:
I won't be buying any of this rubbish

Care to elaborate?

aussiebloke · Sep 10, 2012

That what it is rubbish over priced rubbish

aussiebloke · Sep 10, 2012

Just like the mugs befor select

ooneil · Sep 10, 2012

aussiebloke said:
Just like the mugs befor select

I had the same thought.........lets hope it does not end the same way.

Dr Grange · Sep 10, 2012

Dr Grange said:
Next you will see cheap boxes on Ebay as dealers search cases as 5 boxes per case have only commons & 6 parrallel cards in them.
All cases are packed the same so once dealers work out which 5 boxes contain the 6 signature cards they just pull them out of the case & sell the rest.

Here is the 1st 5 boxes from a searched case on ebay watch & see the rest of to dealers start doing it as well.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2012-RUG...League_Merchandise&hash=item416ab3dac7#ht_644

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2012-RUG...League_Merchandise&hash=item416ab3d9eb#ht_644

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2012-RUG...League_Merchandise&hash=item3f1c39c0d9#ht_644

King Collector · Sep 10, 2012

thenamesgould said:
Saw a box for sale and couldn't resist ... well I wish I had ... ALL BASE!!!

WORST RELEASE EVER!!!

That is an outrage! EPIC FAIL from ESP and NRL! why doesn't someone from the NRL oversee the operations of manufacturing? can't say much for select either.....

King Collector · Sep 10, 2012

Dr Grange said:
Cheapest option base sets on Ebay $19.00 - $20.. with free delivery(72 cards ) 3ptks =$24.00 & only 24 cards hard to justify.
Next you will see cheap boxes on Ebay as dealers search cases as 5 boxes per case have only commons & 6 parrallel cards in them.
All cases are packed the same so once dealers work out which 5 boxes contain the 6 signature cards they just pull them out of the case & sell the rest.

that is disgusting, i cant believe all the cases are all packed the same, sounds dodgy to me, amateur as anything

King Collector · Sep 10, 2012

tak35bne said:
I think I had mentioned in another thread that the positives of this release far outweigh the negatives. Wasn't this set marketed as a preview set or something like that so if that was the case and we look at it like that then we are indeed going to be well serviced by ESP. They have demonstrated, in my opinion, a wish to service the needs of the NRL card collecting community by giving us Origin and Test cards, we know they can manufacture Jersey Cards, and they have given us Test and SOO Captain Signatures in a preview set.

They have shown us they have the capability and desire to cater to the communities desires, yes, the product in some members opinions needs tweeking, we are only saying that because we are so used to many many levels of inserts with Select and numbered cards etc. Would it be so bad if we never see a return to numbered cards? it may affect resale prices of individual cards but as we have found with this release it is better suited to multi-box or case buyers.

I think the future of NRL trading cards is in great hands and I am excited to see where the sets will go from here.............

Numbered cards are extremely important, because with unnumbered card who knows how many exist in the production run, not only it gives value but it's also quite satisfying to know you have something that 50000 other people don't have. you never know unnumbered cards could also be counterfeited one day.....

shane_sharks · Sep 11, 2012

i got 2 boxes of them and that will be all i will be getting

not looking good so far

shane_sharks · Sep 11, 2012

i got 2 boxes of them and that will be all i will be getting

not looking good so far

bob · Sep 11, 2012

Very Hard to warm to! $200 down the drain allready, so far 4 parralels and they arent any Titans there,not happy.

thenamesgould · Sep 11, 2012

The parallels are boring as, you can barely even tell the difference between that and the normal card.

This set would have been totally saved if they numbered the sigs and had one per box.

So I still have confidence - it's not going to take a lot to massively improve their product.

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